Some People Cannot Be Reasoned With. Don't Try.

A few millennia ago, Solomon said, “Do not speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.”

My wife was in the left turn lane of a busy boulevard in our
community, a suburb of New Orleans. A driver who insisted on maneuvering
his car across five lanes of traffic–he was crossing the
street!–managed to hit her car on the side, just behind the right front
tire. Then, he had the audacity to sue her, saying she had hit him.

In court, the judge noted our photos showing the front of the man’s car smashed and the side of my wife’s car dented.

“Mr. Davis,” the judge said, “Don’t you mean you hit her car?”

“Oh, no sir, judge. She hit me.”

Even when the magistrate pointed out that for this to occur, her car
would have had to be moving sideways, the man kept insisting that she
had hit him.

The case was thrown out.

There’s more to this.

A few days before we had the fender fixed, Margaret had my car and
had gone out of town. I drove her car with the dent to the mall. When I
came out, an hour later, there was a note on the windshield. “A green
Taurus backed into your car. Tag number 567-A.”

What was interesting about that was that the Taurus had hit the fender just behind the damage from the first accident.

The next morning, I ran by the local police department and reported
it. The sergeant was not supposed to do this, but he let me read over
his shoulder the name and address of the culprit who had hit my car and
then driven off.

I decided to pay the fellow a visit.

Hey, one does not survive as a Baptist preacher without a certain amount of nerve!

When I arrived at the address, that same Taurus was just pulling into
the driveway. I walked up and spotted the deep scratch showing paint
from my wife’s car.

“What are you doing?” the driver asked.

“Just checking to see where your car hit mine last night.”

His wife got out of the car and said, “He didn’t hit your car.”

I said, “Maybe not, but that car hit my car. There’s my paint on your
fender. And if you’ll come over here, I’ll show you your paint on
mine.”

“Sir,” the woman insisted, “he did not hit you.”

I said, “Ma’am, I have no idea who the driver was. But an eyewitness
saw it happen and wrote down your tag number. I got your address from
the police.”

“We didn’t do it,” she said.

I smiled and said, “Well, the police have the information now.
They’re always interested in people who run into other people’s cars and
then drive away. You folks have a nice day.”

I left, knowing full well that they would never hear from the police.
But they didn’t know that. Let them stew over it a few days. It’ll do
them good.

Denial, they say, is not a river in Egypt. It is alive and well as a
defense mechanism for people unwilling to face reality and take
accountability for their deeds.

In Watergate days, it was called “stonewalling.” You look your
accuser in the face without blinking and vow and declare that you have
no knowledge of what he’s talking about.

Most people call it lying.

We remember O.J. Simpson announcing he “never wore those dumb***
shoes” even when photographers came up with pictures proving otherwise.

Normal people never perfect the art of prevarication as it requires a total suspension of self-respect and honor.

Many years back, the FBI running a drug sting managed to catch the
mayor of Washington, D.C., on video tape participating in a drug buy.
There it was in living color for all the world to see. Had youtube been
around then, it would have gone viral. But the mayor denied it. “I never
did it,” his (lack of) honor kept protesting. A newsman commented, “The
man has no sense of shame.”

After 9-11, citizens of some Middle East countries would watch videos
of Osama bin Laden admitting planning the terrorist acts that took
place in America that 2001 day, and they denied his guilt. “He did not
do this,” they said. “The tapes are fakes.” One wondered what it would
have taken to convince them.

I have unfriended a few Facebook “friends” who seemed to thrive on
arguing. Their favorite activity was finding a statement from some
well-meaning soul and begin a controversy, no matter that it was only
barely related to the subject at hand. And, when some unsuspecting
friend responded to them–thinking they were dealing with a rational
person–they were off and running. Then, when I sent a private message
asking them to stop this, they accused me of caving in to liberals,
cowardice in the face of courage, that sort of thing. Life is too short
for this kind of foolishness. Deleting them from my friends’ list was a
privilege, one I thoroughly enjoyed.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)

The word for “confess” means to “say the same thing” which the Lord
says about something. That is, to agree with Him that what I did was
wrong. Only when I do that–when I identify the cancer, call it by name,
and give the Doctor permission to do surgery–only then can a faithful,
loving Lord remove it and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

There is at least one place in the universe where excuse-making,
denials, and stonewalling will not stand up: In the presence of the Lord
Himself. “Every tongue shall confess,” says Philippians 2:10.

Indeed.

Dr. Joe McKeever is a preacher and cartoonist. He holds a master of theology and doctor of ministry degrees from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (1967 and 1973). During his long career, Dr. McKeever served as Director of Missions for the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans and was senior pastor at churches in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Recently retired, he still accepts speaking invitations and plans to write one book a year for the next ten years.